Huldra Forsvant (Theodor Kittelsen)

Huldra Forsvant (Theodor Kittelsen)
Huldra Forsvant (Theodor Kittelsen)

Monday, February 24, 2014

Fillums

We've been on this trial thing for Quickflix. It's great. Movies magically arrive for you in the post, with a postage paid envelope, and then you just drop them back off in a postbox when your done. The first month was free, and lovely as it was to catch up on lots of movies we've missed over the past couple of years, I doubt we'll continue with the paid version. Still, it was fun while it lasted. Here's some of the stuff we watched--

Silver Linings Playbook 
I really, really liked this. Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence were both great. I'd happily watch it again.

4/5

Hitchcock Okayish. All I could think of though, was 'that's just Anthony Hopkins with a rubber face on'. Why not get a less known actor that actually looks like the person they are portraying? I found it all a bit forgetable.

2.5/5

Wuthering Heights I love all things Wuthering Heights, but I actually hated this version. We both did, and we didn't even finish it. It tried to be very edgy and different, but just stripped the source material of all the essentials. That's Heathcliffe? The guy who barely even speaks in the whole movie? Nope. The camera work was so edgy that I think it was being hand-held by a monkey. And whenever they wanted us to understand the inner turmoil of a character they'd pan a way to a dead tree, or maybe a moth writhing in the mud. Yeah, we get it.

1.5/5  

The Impossible I knew nothing about this movie, and had low expectations. But it blew me away, I thought it was amazing. The way it portrayed the tsunami was frighteningly realistic (hooray for scale models instead of dopey CGI) and Naomi watts was really great. Made sense to discover it was the same director as the awesome The Orphanage.

4/5

The Internship Before this, I thought I hated anything with Vince Vaughn in it. 

I was right.

2/5



Great Expectations Okay, but a bit unnecessary. the BBC version a couple years back with Agent Scully as Miss Havisham was better. Overall it was not bad, especially the parts with Ralph Fiennes as ol' Magwitch, and I'd have rated it higher if it were not for The. Dreadful. Helena . Bonham. Carter. No, no, no, no no! She is the same in every role. Kooky, crazy, unhinged.. but THE SAME. She's only good when she does something different. Like The King's Speech, where she just acted like a normal person for once.

3/5

5 comments:

ALaird said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ALaird said...

Oops - I'll try again...

Agree - I loved Silver Linings Playbook. And I have happily watched it again.

PS - welcome back

Ali said...

Just as well you didn't finish that version of Wuthering Heights. Seriously disturbing. And I mean seriously. That director went to town with even the faintest glimmer of darkness and insanity in the book.

Helena Bonham-Carter is one of my all-time favourite actresses, but that's because I've only only watched her in those period dramas with big hair. It all started years ago when I watched "Lady Jane" (chosen like a teenager because it had Westley from The Princess Bride in it), then "Hazard of Hearts" simply because she was in it (do yourself a favour and watch Barbara Cartlains Hazard of Hearts - swashbuckling entertainment).

Anonymous said...

These reviews made me laugh! I too loved Silver Linings Playbook and The Impossible, and TOTALLY AGREE about crazy Helena Bonham-Carter!!

I have a Quickflix trial email sitting in my inbox AT THIS VERY MOMENT waiting for me to do something about it; I'm going to sign up now. For a month.

Ben McLaughlin said...

Lairdy- thanks champ

Ali- Glad you agreed about WH. And glad I didn't finish it. Helena's downfall seems to have coincided with getting mixed up with old mate Tim Burton..

Belle- Cool do it! It's really fun!